On the passing of Morris Bornstein, Prof. Emeritus of Economics and former CREES Director

Oct 02, 2012

Morris Bornstein passed away September 25, 2012. He was born September 4, 1927, in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Samuel Bornstein and Elizabeth (Goldenstein) Bornstein.

He attended public schools in Detroit, Michigan, and then received three degrees from the University of Michigan: A.B, 1947, A.M, 1948, and Ph.D, 1952.

Dr. Bornstein was an economist with U.S. Government agencies in Washington, D.C and Brazil in 1951-52 and 1955-58. In 1953-55 he was in the U.S. Army, serving in Military Intelligence as a counterintelligence agent.

In 1958 he joined the University of Michigan, Department of Economics as an Assistant Professor, and became an Associate Professor in 1962, a Professor in 1964, and a Professor Emeritus in 1992. In 1966-69 he was director of the University’s Center for Russian and East European Studies.

Dr. Bornstein also held visiting research appointments at Harvard University’s Russian Research Center, 1962-63; Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, 1969-70, and the French Ministry of Research and Technology, 1991.

He was a consultant to the U.S. Congress, the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the Ford Foundation, the Institute of International Education, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Social Science Research Council, the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (Paris), the World Bank, and other organizations.

Dr. Bornstein served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Comparative Economics, Problems of Economic Transition, Post-Soviet Affairs, Economic Policy in Transitional Economies, Post-Communist Economies, and Post-Soviet Geography and Economics.

Dr. Bornstein’s publications on comparative economic systems, the economies of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and the economics of transition included seven books (some translated into Italian, Spanish, Chinese or French) and sixty journal articles and chapters in collective volumes. His principal contributions to the economic literature concerned the modeling of economic systems as integrated subsystems of property ownership, resource allocation, and income distribution; the analysis of the Soviet price system, and comparisons of economic reforms in socialist planned economies. His Cooperative Economic Systems textbook (in seven editions) was widely used in college courses over thirty years.

Dr. Bornstein is survived by his wife Reva, daughters Susan Bornstein and Jane Rieger, his brother Ronald Bornstein, cousins, nieces and nephews. His sisters Pearl Sandubrae and Frances Adoff predeceased him. The family would like to thank Patti Dobbs, Nancy Harbowy and Jennie Stinson of Ann Arbor, Michigan, three extraordinary women who provided Dr. Bornstein so much support in his later years, as well as his niece Sheila Sandubrae Davis, of Jackson, Wyoming.